The Thing
by E-81
Summary: Following the events of Thule Station, Kate Lloyd seeks refuge at the Russian Outpost. However, a piece of the Carter-Thing survives and she stumbles upon a larger alien conspiracy. The fate of the planet may depend on an unlikely alliance. I own nothing but OCs.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Pain. Hot searing pain. That was all that the Carter-Thing experienced when Kate pulled the trigger of the flamethrower. He had desperately tried to convince her that that there was nothing to fear, that he was still human, that she was horribly mistaken. It took all of the willpower that the Carter-Thing possessed not to lunge for the weapon and tear the woman wielding it in half. If there was anything to be learned from the events of Thule Station, it was that for the aliens to survive, they had to remain hidden.

Deception was the key to survival. Not force, as shown by the deaths of nearly all of it's comrades. They had shown a severe lack of subtlety. The humans were cruel creatures and would not hesitate to burn them alive.

The Carter-Thing knew better. The others were stupid, rash even. They revealed themselves in full light and rushed the armed humans like brainless animals, hoping the fear that their ferocity instilled would be enough to paralyze the humans. All that their tactics had accomplished was to get them all killed. The Carter-Thing could have been the last of his kind for all that he knew.

How long had it been since the crash anyway? While on board the ship, it had not had the time to check the mission calendar. What had become of his kind after the fall? The last time he had been in contact with any other ships, the communication network had been in complete disarray. And even now that could have been thousands of years ago. The others had obviously not received the ship's automated distress signal, or for more perplexing reasons; chose to ignore it.

When it had seen Kate throw that grenade, it's blood had ran cold. Not over the loss of a comrade, but because the ship had been rendered completely inoperable. There was now know way for it to ever again reach it's people. The concept of being stranded on this strange globe that the humans referred to as "Earth" was frightening.

Ever since it's first encounter with the humans, they had shown nothing but brutal hostility. It had not even completely awoken from hibernation when they had drilled into the alien's flesh with their archaic tools. They were horrifying creatures. While on this planet, the others believed that the only way to survive was to fight, but the Carter-Thing knew that that would only lead to the possible extinction of their species.

The Carter-Thing knew that the only way to survive was to remain hidden. To play a dangerous game of deception where loosing meant death at the hands of the humans. They had called themselves scientists, yet they never really attempted to understand the aliens. All that they had cared about was their carrier boosts that the discovery of an alien life form would present them with. Well all except Kate Lloyd.

Kate had been the only one of the humans who attempted to understand the alien life forms. And even then she only did so for a way to exterminate them. None of the humans thought to attempt to make peaceful contact and so the pattern of violence and death had continued. But to be fair, the aliens did not seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict either. All of the humans and all of the aliens continued in their lethal game of cat and mouse.

When the Sander-Thing had enabled the assimilation of Sam Carter, the alien's arm had separated from it's body and slithered into the darkest corner of the shaft that the man had crawled through. When a piece of one of the things separates from the body, it becomes its own intelligence. A severed arm becomes it's own organism with it's own thoughts, morals, motives, and agenda. The arm had patiently waited until the man had passed him for it's moment to strike.

The arm had grew centipede like legs and antennae. It had crawled up the wall and moved onto the shaft and dropped onto the back of the man's neck. He had struggled. Sam had reached back to grasp the creature and in a feeble attempt to wrench it off of him, he had torn the skin off of his neck exposing the flesh underneath. He had howled in pain. The creature still hung by the strip of skin that hung from Sam's neck. The man released the creature and grasped the skin, in one quick jerk of the hand, he has tore the rest of the skin and threw it down the shaft with the creature still attached to it.

The creature had slammed into the curved metal wall of the shaft with a resounding thud. It scrambled to right itself and sprint towards that man who had been repeatedly pulling the trigger on the flamethrower strapped to his back. When he pulled the trigger only quick spurts of flame came out. The weapon had once again jammed and in his attempt to repair the issue, Sam's attention had been diverted away from the alien slithering in his direction.

`Close enough to lung at the man, the alien aimed for his neck. Just as Sam looked back to the creature, it slammed into his neck with a surprising force and the man went tumbling back. Acting before the helicopter pilot got his bearings, the alien launched a tentacle into the man's neck and had lodged it into his spinal cord. Acquiring complete control of the man's body, the alien had paralyzed Sam Carter and proceeded to replicate him.

The Carter-Thing knew that in order to survive on Earth, it needed a human ally that would dispute any accusations against it's humanity. The best way to survive behind enemy lines is to blend in. Kate was his only option for an ally.

Of course, all of this had been wasted effort. Kate had been the go-to expert on the aliens among the humans. She had, after all, been the only one to pin point their weaknesses. For example, the alien's inability to replicate inorganic material.

Perhaps the first mistake that the Carter-Thing made was reaching for his ear when Kate had pointed out her way of confirming the man's humanity. He could have easily crafted a convenient lie about it getting knocked out in a fight or by an explosion. Instead, he had reached for the wrong ear. The second mistake was the panicked state that he had found himself in when she had exposed him for what he was. His inability to form a coherent statement had not helped his case.

Kate had seamed greatly pained by what she would have to do. The Thing had hopped that his panic would cause her to rethink her theory about his non-humanity, but he had been greatly mistaken. Any other alien would have lunged for the woman and killed her where she stood but the Carter-Thing had another idea.

With a look of determination upon her face, Kate pulled the trigger and sent a stream of flame at the Carter-Thing. First he felt the warmth envelope him, warmth which soon turned to a searing heat. The exposed skin of his face and hands immediately bubbled and boiled. The creature let out an unearthly howl of pain. He flailed his arms in a futile attempt to snuff out the flames. As the alien's skin pealed and slipped off of his flesh, the creature's left arm began to stretch at he elbow.

Transferring it's consciousness to the left arm, the elbow wrenched in such an inhuman angle that all of the bones snapped. The loud crack was muffled by the alien's continued howls. The flesh and skin began to stretch until it finally tore and the arm slipped out the door and onto the snow, splattering the pristine white with the crimson of blood. Tearing the skin and sending more blood splattering into the snow, the arm sprouted centipede legs and antenna and slipped under the snow cab to avoid being spotted by Kate. As it scanned the area ahead, it spotted a discarded flamethrower lying in the snow. It also was able to spot he foot prints leading to he other snow cab.

Kate had been sitting in the drivers side of the other snow cab for about ten minutes before she decided that she could brood over the loss of Sam later and that her survival should be on the forefront of her mind. She looked about the cabin for a key and after a few moments of fumbling around she found one in the glove compartment.

The sound of a snow cab starting alerted the alien to the fact that Kate was preparing to depart. Having no desire to be left behind to hibernate for a few thousand more years, the creature slithered over to the snow cab and climbed into the back just as it began to pull forward in the direction of the Russian Outpost. The snow cab departed from the warm orange glow of the flames into the cold black of the Antarctica night.


	2. In Retrospect

**Chapter 1- In Retrospect**

Kate sat in the snow cab for about fifteen minutes trying to comprehend the events of the last day while retaining what little was left of her sanity. Kate needed to snap out of her current state. She needed to plan her next step. Although she had escaped the creature's reach, surviving alone in the Antarctic was not going to be an easy task. The cold alone could kill her before she would even get halfway to the American Outpost. That left only the Russian Outpost left.

Kate leaned over and pulled a map out of the glove compartment. She unfolded it and held it out in front of her. The Russian Outpost was at least half as far from her current location as the American Outpost. She really did not look forward to attempting to explain to the Soviets why an American would be seeking refuge at their outpost in the middle of the night. Despite any fears that she harbored of the Soviets, the idea of remaining at the ship was even more terrifying.

Making up her mind, Kate put the snow cab in gear and began heading in the direction of the Soviet base. Her mind drifted to how she would present herself to them. Keeping the events of the past day to herself seemed like the best thing to do. They would think her mad and have her locked away up. Hell, they might even suspect her of being a spy and lock her up or worse anyway. But once again, they were her only hope of surviving.

Kate sighed and made an attempt to push all of these thoughts from her mind. Instead she looked up to the stars, which were very clear in the Antarctic. Like she had said before, she would never look at them the same way again. They were a sea of suns, and each sun could harbor a life sustaining planet, and each life sustaining planet could birth hundreds of species, and anyone of those hundreds of species could evolve into a space faring civilization. How many of those small white dots in our sky could potentially be home to an intelligent alien species? How many of those alien species could possibly pose a threat to the human race? And how many of those species could potentially become allies of the human race? Would she ever in her lifetime have the chance to communicate with another race from another planet? After the events of the past few days, would she want to?

Kate had never been one to think that the universe revolved around humanity. In actuality, Kate was one of the least anthropocentric human beings that one could ever meet. She had always felt that we had just gotten lucky and there could be others in the universe. In fact, Kate always felt that those who doubt the potential for alien life were ignorant fools. Now she wished that those ignorant fools had been right. But humanity was but a drop in the ocean of life that was the universe. That prospect was both humbling and very frightening.

Despite it's horrors, this organism that she had encountered had been very fascinating. She had desperately wanted to uncover all of it's secrets and how how it worked at a genetic level. She had told herself that it was to discover the creature's weaknesses in order to destroy it. But in reality, she had wanted to satiate her thirst for knowledge. The creature had to have been intelligent if it could imitate the subtlety of human actions, perhaps she could have attempted to resolve the conflict peacefully. But the risks were too great. If this creature had wanted more than a way off of Earth, then there would have been no way to stop it from taking what it wanted. These creatures were obviously master manipulators and there would be no way of knowing if what they say could have been trustworthy. So Kate had to eliminate the threat.

Despite her reasoning, Kate still dwelled on why the Carter-Thing had not left her to die in the ship or killed her on the way out in the dark ice tunnels. Surely it had to have been angry that she destroyed it's only means of leaving the planet. It could have just left her in the control room instead of calling her towards the exit, she would have been fried in the explosion. It could have killed or assimilated her easily in the dark ice tunnels. But why had it not? Perhaps it still needed her for it's plans. Or maybe she just could not comprehend it's motives or intent. Despite what it was capable of and what she had seen these creatures do to her friends, somewhere deep inside her she regretted killing the Carter-Thing. Maybe it was just as frightened of the idea of being stranded on Earth as she was of the research team was of it.

Kate turned her attention to the fuel meter. The snow cab would run dry on fuel long before she would reach the Russian Outpost. She would only make it about forty-five miles until the engine would shut down. Then she would have to trudge through the snow the rest of the way. About five miles through the freezing snow. Until then, she just relaxed and enjoyed the peace.

The Carter-Thing was cold. It feared that if Kate did not step on the gas it would fall into hibernation again. That would be very bad. The last thing that it wanted was for Kate to find a hibernating alien in the back of the snow cab.

The Carter-Thing crawled up the back of the cabin to look into the back window of the snow cab. Kate appeared to be gazing up into the night sky for some reason as if looking for something in particular. The thing thought about crawling into the cabin to be closer to the warmth that poured from the heating vents but that would be too risky. Although Kate had left her flame thrower back at the crash sight, she could still pose a threat. The creature would have to suffer the cold until Kate reached the Russian Outpost. It should not have been long, the snow cab moved at a rather fast pace.

Shivering, the creature curled in on itself in the front right corner of the bed of the snow cab, closest to the heat. As is attempted to get warm, the creature began to contemplate it's next move. Leaving Earth was no longer an option. If it was able to procure some sort of transportation out of Antarctica, it would be able to make it's way to a warmer climate. It could integrate itself into human society and remain unseen.

The Carter-thing began to reexamine the intelligence of the blind jump that they made into this galaxy. Perhaps they should have just stayed in there own territory but orders were orders and the mission was very high priority.

When the ship's shielding was overloaded by the solar radiation, propulsion systems and inertial dampeners went offline and they crashed into Earth's antarctic, they had attempted to deploy a distress signal but the chances of it being received were slim. The only way that help would have arrived would have been if the signal had been able to reach their own galaxy, which would have been near impossible. Earth would have to become the Carter-Thing's new home.


End file.
